Jeff Greenfield in Politico piece explores whether in an era of non-stop media and online coverage of primaries and caucuses the Republican convention can pick a presidential nominee who didn’t win the popular vote.

In 2016, many Americans don’t understand that the political parties are private entities and are not bound by the Constitution, never mind the common perception that the guy or gal who gets the most votes usually wins in American politics.

Even in Wisconsin, voters who chose Ted Cruz over Donald Trump by a wide margin still thought that the candidate with the most votes at the end of the primary season should be the nominee. Under that scenario, Trump almost certainly would get the nod as he’s already ahead of his nearest competitor, Cruz, by roughly 2 million popular votes.

The problem with the primary season is that there is no runoff for the two top vote- getters. Under that scenario, Trump most certainly could not win, even against Cruz. But with the determination of 17 candidates to run through the early primaries, and a candidate (John Kasich) who has won only one state continuing to run, that means Trump can continue to win three-way races.

Cruz has a plan to take the nomination away from Trump via out-organizing him in the delegate selection. But given Cruz’s own limited popularity, that may not work for him with the public in a general election. The question for the party establishment will be can they explain to the public that they’re picking someone who did not run, or who did not win the most popular votes, because he/she is more likely to win in the fall.

And even if they can, will the Trumpites and Cruzibles, accept it. Not.

At Fox News, it’s all about organized left-wing protesters disrupting the free speech rights of Trump. While on MSNBC and CNN it’s about statements Trump has made inciting his supporters toward violence against protesters.

Whatever the reality, it’s clear now that Trump has become such a lightning rod in the country that he will find it challenging to stage a peaceful rally going forward.

Interestingly, both Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio have used the violence at Trump’s rallies to join progressive critics in condemning Trump’s rhetoric.

The country is deeply divided but it may now be divided three ways: left, right and Trumpian.

Gone is the animosity of 2008 when African-Americans just as clearly preferred Barack Obama to the Clinton.

That’s important because the Democratic Party remains the party preferred by African-Americans, Latinos and increasingly Asian Americans. Conversely, the Republican Party is ever more preferred by white voters each cycle.

Mitt Romney won a larger percentage of white voters than Ronald Reagan and still lost because every year America comes closer and closer to being a minority-majority country. Another way of putting that is a country where whites will be the minority.

The establishment of the Republican Party knows it needs to make progress with minority voters — witness the major candidacies of both Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, but the Donald Trump appeal to nationalist whites has derailed that effort, at least for the time being.

Watch for Clinton, if she continues to proceed to the nomination to pick a Latino or African-American vice presidential candidate — possibly Julian Castro, the HUD secretary and former mayor of San Antonio. And look for her to make direct appeals to both minorities and women as a fulcrum of her candidacy.

In addition to the racial gap at the presidential level, there is a gender gap. Women, particularly single women, vote Democratic in far greater numbers than do their male counterparts.

Race and gender are primal motivations for voting, and though they don’t override all other considerations, they are major ones. Whether Clinton makes her appeals to race and gender overtly or subtly, expect her to make them. Minority voters and women voters at a very deep level would be happy to see one of their own in the presidency.

The question will be: Can she turn out blacks, Latinos and women to vote the way Obama turned out in great number blacks, Latinos and young people.

A relatively strong turnout from city public officials for the South Coast LGBTQ Network‘s 10-year anniversary program for the attack on Puzzles gay bar.

The turnout from the rest of Greater New Bedford, however, was disappointing. About 50 or so turned out to listen to speakers who marked an attack that is credited with changing the level of acceptance of lesbian and gay residents of the region.

School Committee member Larry Finnerty gave moving remarks about the work that was done in the city school system to defuse bullying of gay and transgender students. Longtime leader of the Marriage Equality Coalition, Andrew Pollack, also spoke with insight and experience of what it was like to be gay in the region pre-marriage equality and pre-Puzzles.

Among those in attendance were City Council President Linda Morad and five of the 11 city councilors, state Rep. Tony Cabral and former mayor Scott Lang. Mayor Jon Mitchell sent a representative and a message that he was unable to attend because of a conflict.

But the attendance from the LGBTQ community and citizens at large was relatively small. Maybe things have changed so greatly in 10 years that people didn’t feel the need. Maybe some feel the equality battles have already been won.

The the real awakening moment after Puzzles in the end may have been when the region turned out in big numbers for a community-wide forum two months after the 2006 attack. As Finnerty pointed out Saturday, it was a light bulb moment for many citizens when members of the local gay community stood up at that forum and adult after adult after adult told of their experience feeling unsafe at New Bedford High School.

It was that moment that led to programming that helped increase awareness in the New Bedford school system of the challenges gay and transgender students face. That moment eventually also led to A Perfect Place, the community center in the downtown for LGBTQ youth. And it also led indirectly to a program like the South Coast LGBT Seniors center in Fairhaven.

That’s what changed in New Bedford in the past decade. And that’s what the folks at the Unitarian Church service Saturday night were there to celebrate. Whether the crowd was large or small.

That means Trump has retaken the lead from Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders has stalled a bit in his effort to overtake Clinton.

The caucuses — especially on the Democratic side — are a complicated and lengthy process. It’s not clear yet whether Sanders will be able to get his people out. Or Trump for that matter.

Clinton and Trump are running the more well-organized, traditional get-out-the-vote operations. It will be interesting to see what tonight brings. If Trump and Sanders both win, it will be an earthquake night in American politics.

It may be impossible for any Republican to stop Trump if he wins with an evangelical voter base like Iowa. And Clinton may have to go very negative on Sanders if he wins both Iowa and New Hampshire.

As Donald Trump moves to knock out his GOP competition with potential wins in both Iowa and New Hampshire, Bernie Sanders is also pulling away from Hillary Clinton in both states.

Are Americans ready to throw over the establishment of both political parties? Has the country really tired of middle-of-the-road consensus politics that some argue often leaves it paralyzed? Or will the mainstream candidates come back as the field dwindles and more traditional states vote later in the primary season.

Sanders’ campaign ad out this morning uses iconic Simon and Garfunkel song to subliminally call the country back to its better nature.

Besides the payback issue, however, it could be argued that it’s healthy for the council to have a different voice heading up the Public Safety Committee after two decades. It’s not clear whether the city has gotten any safer in the past two decades although the murder rate is certainly lower than it’s been at some points during that period.

It’s a time-honored tradition trading votes for the council presidency for chairmanships although many presidents have denied it. If it’s not direct quid-pro-quo trade, councilors certainly make their desired chairmanships known to would-be presidents. No word on whether the new council president made any trades, or was asked for trades and refused.

Morad’s appointment of Ward 1 Councilor Jim Oliveira as chairman of the new Budget Review Committee is almost as interesting as the removal of Gomes. Oliveira has been a moderate councilor in his first two terms, certainly not the conservative ideologue that Morad is. On the other hand, Oliveira represents one of the most affluent wards in the city and would be keenly aware of the much larger than usual property tax increase this year.

Morad has not been afraid to make some change, and some interesting appointments, in her first public action as council president. It could an interesting two years as she represents the council against the man who defeated her in the mayoral race four years ago.

They’re saying that Hillary should have attacked Sanders earlier on both his anti-gun control positions and about how he would pay for his “socialist” programs, like universal single-payer health care.

It’s not clear, however, that that’s the problem. With the growing awareness of the wage gap, and the divide between the exponentially increase income of those at the very top and the shrinking middle class, the Democratic Party may have moved further left than the era of the Clintons.

The popularity of Donald Trump, and his own critique of the income gap, may indicate that a segment of the Republican Party has moved left too.

If you were wondering what the city has in mind for the former Eversource site or the Hicks-Logan area in the Upper Harbor, Mayor Jon Mitchell put one of his ideas on the table today.

He said he has been lobbying to relocate NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center to either the Eversource site or that of the old Revere Copper and Brass factories. In a story on SouthCoastToday this afternoon Mitchell outlined the ways in which New Bedford is a superior site, not the least of which there is room for the center’s fishing study boat in the harbor.

The fisheries science center at the Eversource site would certainly be more welcome by the fishing industry than a casino would be. But whether the science center is the best option for the site, or even one of the only viable options, remains to be seen. Also remaining to be seen is whether city officials and the congressional delegation could get this done.

It certainly presents a no-win scenario for 9th District Congressman Bill Keating who represents both Woods Hole and New Bedford.

What to make of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz refusing to criticize each other at Tuesday night’s presidential debate?

Since the campaign got into high gear this summer, Trump and Cruz (who met at the time), have generally taken a gloves off approach. Until last week, when private comments by Cruz about Trump not having the judgment to be president went public. Trump then let loose with something about Cruz being a “maniac” when he got to the Senate.

But by the time of the debate, Trump was back to saying that over the last few days he had a realized that Cruz was a great guy. Sort of like when he called Carly Fiorina’s face beautiful after first deriding it.

So you have two guys who each may have a ceiling of less than 50 percent betting that if they can keep the mainstream candidates at bay, one of them can win the Republican nomination with a plurality rather than a majority of the votes.

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Jack Spillane

Jack Spillane is the executive news editor of The Standard-Times and southcoasttoday.com and a political and human interest columnist for the paper.
Jack holds a master’s degree in mass communication from Emerson College and has been a ... Read Full